by A P Bateman
Kittila, Lapland
King had cleared immigration without a check. Finland was a member of the European Union and the least populated country in Europe. Lapland was technically a country within a country. A region of sensitivity where Finland had to respect its independence for cultural reasons, but that country was also not a self-sufficient one. It needed Finland to maintain its indigenous people. An ironic existence. He had never previously visited, though, and did not possess a word of the language. First impressions were of an independent people, proud of their standing in the world, and happy. King knew the five Nordic countries were self-assured, desirable places to live and among the happiest in the world. He had been to Norway many times. It was where he had completed his mountain and arctic warfare training alongside the SAS and Royal Marines. He liked what he saw in the Norwegians and could tell that there was something similar in the people here as well. Like they shared an inside joke or understanding. We didn’t follow the rest of the West and look towards the United States. We didn’t fall in with the USSR either. We went our own way, and whose life is better now?
King could see the appeal of countries whose lifestyle and income balanced enough that the people all got to play. The Nordics loved the outdoor life, they made time for cake and coffee, for drinking, for socialising – but without the health and social downfalls. They had better health, less crime and more disposable income. It seemed the sort of place he could happily retire to when he was finished playing cowboys and Indians for MI5. A log cabin, summer swims in the thousands of lakes, cosy winter fires – perhaps neighbours and friends to grow close to? He doubted that, but it was all part of the daydream.
King’s first step outside the airport brought all those thoughts crashing down. His breath hung around him in a thick fog and his throat swelled with the sudden rush of icy air. It was three-PM and virtually dark. He stepped back inside, and the blast of warm air thawed him and as the glass doors closed, he thought how soon events could be forgotten. He had spent three-weeks with the SAS and Royal Marines in Norway. He couldn’t remember it ever being this cold. He had been younger then, but still. He was in his early forties now, would have been twenty-eight when he took to the frozen fjords and mountains. Could he really have forgotten what it would be like? No. He decided that this was really something else. Across the ice road, he could see a thermometer on a pole.
-30°C.
Really? He knew his freezer at home was twenty-degrees warmer than that.
He dumped his bag on the floor and opened it, pulled out a pair of black salopettes, kicked off his shoes and pulled the bulky thermal overalls over his trousers. He put on a pair of thick woollen socks over his cotton socks and pulled out a pair of insulated hiking boots. King rummaged through the bag and took out two sweaters. He slipped on the thinner of the two and fastened the bib of the salopettes before putting the thicker sweater over the top. He already felt stiff and cumbersome, but he wasn’t finished there. He slipped a hoodie he regularly jogged in over the sweater, then put a navy-blue ski jacket over the top.
King would have been finished there, but for cursing out loud and stripping most of the clothing back off to remove his wallet from his trouser pocket. He caught a glimpse of his expression in the smoked glass. Cursed his rookie mistake. Re-dressed and perspiring at the effort, remembered the car keys and cursed again. Finally, dressed and with everything he would need now placed in his jacket pockets, King put on a pair of Gortex gloves and a black beanie, swung his considerably lighter bag over his shoulder and stepped back out through the automatic doors. The cold still seared his throat and he could feel the beads of sweat from the exertion of changing freeze on his brow.
King found the car as arranged. He had picked up the envelope containing the keys at airport services. There were many car rental companies based at the airport, but none of them operated at this time of year. The whole area had now shut down for tourists. Kitilla was the staging post for families taking their children on the ultimate Christmas excursion to see Santa. King had read about it in the in-flight magazine, realised what a magical experience it could be. It was the sort of thing he imagined doing with his own children one day, if indeed he ever had them. King’s own childhood had been so poor, so infected and tarnished by poverty, abuse and neglect, that he had never really given in to thoughts of fathering a child. Children and childhood went hand in hand with the worst of his memories and fears. Only in recent years had he warmed to the idea, but now his own relationship was all but on hold, his future uncertain, he had pushed the thought out of his mind.
The car was an old model Nissan Patrol. A sturdy off-roader, or what was commonly called an SUV. It was dented and scuffed but had the meanest set of bull bars King had ever seen. King popped the boot, but nothing happened. He checked the key fob, but it didn’t seem to work either. He used the key but could feel the lock was frozen solid. He abandoned the idea, tried the driver’s door but it was stuck also. He could feel a little play and the lock eventually gave. He pulled the door, but the rubber seal was stuck and peeled away slowly. The car was frozen. When the door finally opened, King could see cans of de-icer on the passenger seat, along with a map and a mobile phone. He picked up a can of de-icer and sprayed it on the locks and over the windscreen. He walked tentatively around the car, the ice solid and slippery underfoot, and sprayed some into the lock on the boot. The boot lid loosened, and King opened it up to find a roll of blankets, snow shovel and a can of fuel. He closed the boot lid and went back to the driver’s side and got in. He started the engine; the diesel pre-heat light and ignition pause taking a few seconds before the engine rattled into life. King put a little throttle on and cranked up the heaters. The car had been standing for a while and the air rushing into the cabin seemed about as cold as the outside air. The engine would benefit from running for a while, so he used the time to adjust his clothing and look around the vehicle. There was no note. Nothing. He had been told that the keys would be waiting for him and that was as far as it went. He removed his gloves and opened the glovebox. He could see the pistol inside, along with a spare magazine. He checked his mirrors, making sure nobody was near, and took out the weapon. It was a classic Walther PPK in .32 auto/7.65mm. He could see from the indicator pin above the hammer that it was not chambered. He reflected why more pistols hadn’t adopted the feature. He worked the slide, chambering a round, de-cocked the hammer using the safety drop and tucked the weapon into his right pocket. He slipped the spare magazine into his left pocket and picked up the map beside him. There was a clear acetate sheet of A4 tucked into the map. Three points had been marked with a cross using a dry-wipe marker and a route had been drawn over the roads he should take. King saw the pen on the seat next to the can of de-icer. He checked the acetate and could see the road he needed had been highlighted. The destination and two further points lined up underneath perfectly. He had used the practice many times over the years and had been taught the importance of not marking a map from his early days with MI6. If captured by a hostile force or government, the acetate could easily be wiped, and the map held no secrets or tell-tale marks.
King studied the map but could not shift the nagging thought in the back of his mind. Something about the map and the acetate. Familiar, like Déjà vu. Something in his past he could not unlock. He shook his head and placed the map on the seat. He could see another route that was fifty-kilometres longer and decided he would accept many things from a stranger, but a route for him to travel through the wilderness was not one of them.
6
The drive north took a bit of getting used to. King had not driven on snow or ice in many years but was now getting into the swing of it. He just needed to remember to do everything slowly and steadily and anticipate far more than on a tarmac road. He met a few vehicles but allowed up to ten times the distance he normally would and within an hour, he was making swift progress and had managed to close the gap and read the road with more confidence. He had taken a different route, d
eciding he would call the shots. He always had done.
Another two hours and he entered civilisation at the town of Inakiai. A pretty town with houses constructed of timber or prefab and painted in a variety of primary colours. Bold reds and blues and yellows. Accented with white. King figured white properties got lost for eight months of the year. Most of the houses had a metre of snow on their roofs and all were equipped with a fixed ladder on the gable to clear the snow or maintain it when the snow thawed. Some houses must have been empty for the winter because they were completely covered, but for stainless-steel chimneys poking through.
The roads were clear here. Scraped back to tarmac with the merest sheen of icy sludge mixed with salt and grit. The edges of the road were piled high with dirty snow, now compacted to ice. King drove onwards and stopped when he came to a Spar convenience store. He helped himself to a tea from the machine. It was flavoured with lemon and there was no option for milk. He drank it down as he stood inside the doorway. He held it up in a gesture to the counter staff, showing them that he wasn’t going to forget to pay, then finished it and dropped it in the bin beside the machine. He picked up some crisps and chocolate and paid for them, along with the tea. He asked where the police station was but didn’t really understand the clerk’s broken English/part Swedish answer. He figured it was Swedish because he made out a couple of words but had nothing in the bank for Finnish. He nodded thanks and walked back outside, the cold clawing at his bare face. He pulled the beanie down further until only his eyes, nose and chin remained uncovered.
The car had cooled already, and he started it up and kept the heater on as he polished off a chocolate bar and looked at the map. He picked up the acetate sheet and placed it over the map. The first cross he figured would be a start and he drove out of the parking bay and down the street. The lights within the houses shone warm and welcoming. The street lamps were sporadic, but King could already see that the snow provided enough ambient light to see by. A white background that would never give way to darkness. The headlights from the SUV cut swathes in the night and highlighted the houses further. King had seen similarly painted houses on the shores of Norwegian fjords.
King saw that the first mark on the acetate was a hotel. There was nothing else in the vicinity, so he figured this was where he was meant to stay. He drove on to the second marker and found the police station. There was one patrol car outside. A Subaru liveried as a police cruiser. It was a four-wheel-drive saloon with a handy turn of speed. Next to the car were two snowmobiles. Each looked frozen in the headlights, a thin sheen of ice covering them. There were ice particles in the air as well. The moisture freezing and dropping lazily to the ground. King could see a figure moving around inside the building. He switched off the engine and got out. He walked the twenty-metres or so to the steps and climbed them carefully, the ice forming a lethally slippery layer as the temperature dropped. He had no idea what the temperature was now, but it was considerably colder than it had been at the airport.
King opened the glass door and stepped into the heated foyer. He dusted the ice crystals off his jacket and removed his beanie and gloves, then unzipped his jacket and felt his skin start to breathe through the multiple layers of clothing underneath.
“It takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?”
A woman’s voice behind him. In all his cumbersome efforts to remove the clothing he had not heard her open the door to a row of offices.
He turned around and smiled. “You knew I was English?” he asked, feeling it strange she had addressed him in anything other than Finnish.
“I was expecting you,” she said. “Your department called ahead.”
“My department?”
“The Home Office,” she said, a little irritably. “I waited for you, was just about to give up and go home.”
King looked at her. Standard Nordic supermodel. Blonde hair plaited in pigtails and held together with red ribbon, strong features with a sharp nose, blue eyes and teeth as white as the landscape. She could have been on the cover of Vogue, except King had no idea what she looked like under her multiple layers of clothing. Perhaps that was why they were all so good looking and had such wonderful smiles? Maybe you just got to fall for the person before you made decisions about their build. From here, she looked like a fourteen stone power lifter in her snow suit and bib. He glanced at his watch. It was just after seven. He looked back at her and smiled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I’d come and touch base,” he paused. He never said things like that, thought he sounded like an area sales manager. “My name is King.”
Her expression softened. “Lena Mäkinen.”
“Senior Constable,” he said.
“Yes.”
“How senior is senior?” Her eyes flashed, and he knew he’d offended her. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how it works out here.”
“Senior enough,” she assured him. She sighed. “Coffee?”
“Please,” King replied. He didn’t drink coffee as a rule, but the British Empire was in full retreat and he found he could get tea in less and less places as coffee completed its march towards global domination with a coffee shop on every corner and a paper cup in every busy persons’ hand. He conceded that anything warm would be welcome and did not want to rebuke her offer. “White and sugar, if that’s okay?”
“Sure,” she said amiably. “Take a seat through here.” She beckoned him into the office and walked over to a weird-looking machine of chrome and red with taps and buttons all over it. She twisted a tap and the machine started to steam and clunk. “Do you watch American dramas?”
King thought for a moment. He realised he didn’t watch much television at all. “Sure,” he said. He had watched CSI for a while, but realised it was most likely a rhetorical question.
“My rank is like that of a Sheriff,” she paused. “I am the law around here…”
She had tried an American Wild West accent, but it hadn’t really worked. Somewhere between Wyoming and Munich. She flushed red, turned her back on him as she made the coffee. When she walked the cups over she had returned to her pale self. King thought she was as beautiful a woman as he had ever met. The thought made him feel guilty, but, he reflected, not as much as it should have.
“I have two constables under me…” she continued. “We are a small department. When we need further assistance, we have police officers and detectives allocated to us. But largely, we do not have murders up here. A bit of drinking and fighting, some thefts of machinery, perhaps love triangles gone wrong. A husband out for some payback…”
“Cold nights?” King smiled knowingly.
“Everybody needs a snuggle in the cold and sometimes there aren’t enough single people to go around,” she said light heartedly. “But seriously, about your friend… He was killed by wolves. Nothing more sinister than that.”
“Personally, I find the thought of wolves eating up tourists quite sinister,” said King, sipping some coffee. To his surprise, it wasn’t half bad.
She nodded. “I will take you to the medical centre to sign him over to you in the morning.”
“Sign him over?”
“Yes, to take him home.”
King shook his head. “Sorry, you misunderstand. I am looking his body, and then I want you to take me to where he was found.”
“But…” she shook her head. “That is not what I was told. And besides, his body was found many kilometres from here. Across Lake Inarijärvi.”
“Then we had best do it in the morning. I take it the lake is frozen?”
“Ah, yes. Very much so.”
“But crossable on snowmobile?”
“Of course, but…”
“Then I’ll get my head down for the night, meet you back here in the morning,” he said. “Say, eight-AM?”
She shrugged. “I suppose.” She looked perplexed.
“You don’t have to check with anyone more… senior?”
It was a cheap shot, but it got the response h
e was counting on.
“No, of course not!” she snapped. “Eight it is.”
“Great.” King put down his half-finished cup of coffee. He saw some reports on the desk, had them committed to memory before he looked back at her. “Can you recommend a hotel that will have vacancies?” he asked hopefully. He did not want his accommodation planned by someone he hadn’t met, either.
She nodded. “The Witch, Serafina,” she said. “The only hotel in town.”
7
The room was a double with a sofa and a television and deliciously warm. The en-suite bathroom complete with a jacuzzi bath was the highlight of the otherwise plain, but comfortable room. Pictures, paintings and portraits of witches lined the corridors, and some had even made their way into the room. It wasn’t the most settling of decors. But King didn’t believe in anything other than flesh and blood and wasn’t put off by a few pictures. As he had checked in he had read a plaque about an author making Lake Inarijärvi, or sometimes just Inari, the home of his fictional witch, and he guessed the book had done well and had a following, and the hotel had sprung up because of it.
King had delighted in shedding his clothes. He had hung his snow gear in the wardrobe and removed the layers and folded them over the back of a chair. He was down to a T-shirt and boxers and was resting on the bed sipping a bottle of Carlsberg beer from the mini bar as he waited for room service. He had ordered reindeer meatballs in what the receptionist had called gravy and blood sauce. It had sounded intriguing. He always liked to try local food, having spent years on burgers and club sandwiches in hotels all around the world, and one day realising he had been missing a trick. The meatballs were coming with rye bread, pickled beetroots and mashed potatoes. He had added cheese and crackers and a pot of tea, told them to keep the lemon and asked for a pot of milk.
King had casually asked if the hotel was full as he had checked in. He had refused the first room he had been shown to, asked for another immediately. There was only one hotel in town, and his room had been pre-booked by the liaison officer he was still yet to meet. He had taken a different route, although he was aware there could have been a tracker fitted to the vehicle. But he had drawn the line at staying in a prearranged room. It was basic security, what was referred to as fieldcraft. He never trusted anybody and put the fact he was still alive down to his built-in and well-honed lack of trust.
